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Christie champions plan to build Camden energy facility with help of tax breaks

Christie in Camden.JPG

Camden Mayor Dana Redd speaks at a news conference Monday announcing that Holtec International will build a manufacturing facility on the city's waterfront. To her right is Gov. Chris Christie and Holtec founder Kris Singh.
(Brent Johnson/The Star-Ledger)

CAMDEN — Hailing it as a crucial step in the effort to revitalize New Jersey’s poorest city, Gov. Chris Christie and other officials on Monday championed a plan by a nuclear-energy company to build a manufacturing facility on the waterfront in Camden — a project that was recently granted $260 million in state breaks.

Holtec International, a Marlton-based company, said the plant — which may take about four years to build — could eventually bring about 3,000 jobs to the struggling city of 77,000 residents.

Christie, in a news conference at the facility’s future site on the Delaware River, said the plan represents the largest one-time investment of private capital in Camden history.

"We are ushering in a new era for Camden," the Republican governor said. "New Jersey will only be as great as it can be if all of our cities are doing better."

Kris Singh, the company’s founder and president, said Holtec chose building in Camden over Charleston, S.C., largely because of the tax-credit package the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved last week — the third-largest economic subsidy in state history.

Holtec — whose board includes George Norcross, one of the state’s most powerful Democrats — promises to create about 400 jobs immediately: 235 new full-time positions and 160 positions relocated from other parts of the state. Once those workers are in place, the company will receive subsidies of $26 million a year for 10 years under the deal. Singh said the facility could provide more than a thousand additional jobs after that.

In exchange, New Jersey will see $155,520 in net economic benefits over 35 years, the EDA estimated. Under the deal, the company is required to stay in Camden for only 15 years.

Singh said the subsidies will help Holtec cover half of the project’s cost. "We wouldn’t have done anything if we didn’t have assistance from the state," he said.

Liberals and conservatives criticized the agreement last week, saying New Jersey was giving tax breaks to a firm with political connections at a time when the state is hurting for cash.

New Jersey has given out more than $4 billion in tax breaks since Christie took office in 2010 — far more than any oone of the governor. But the state's private-sector job growth has been among the slowest in the nation, according to federal data.

Still, officials said this project will bolster Camden, a city that was once a manufacturing and shipbuilding hub but is now often rated as one of the poorest and most violent in the U.S.

Singh said Norcross, chairman of the board at Cooper Health Systems in Camden, did not have a direct hand in the deal, other than to praise the city as the place to build.

"He is pushing Camden all the time," said Singh, who is also a member of Cooper’s board. "I listened to him. But he did nothing with any agreement."

Norcross’ brother, state Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) — who lives in Camden and is running for Congress in November — attended the event and said the plant will help the city return to its manufacturing roots. "We are coming full circle here," he said.

Holtec plans to make storage containers for spent nuclear fuel and modular nuclear reactors at the 600,000-square-foot plant, to be built on the site that was once home to a New York Shipbuilding Corp. yard. Singh stressed that no nuclear fuel will be stored at the facility and the company is taking steps to prevent terrorists from targeting the site.

"Maybe you’ll be able to say nuclear energy’s rebirth began in Camden," Singh said.

He said jobs at the site will be available to Camden residents. Singh said the company will set up an apprenticeship program for local high school graduates and disabled veterans.

The plant was one of two related projects that Christie heralded in South Jersey on Monday. Earlier in the day, he joined state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) in Paulsboro to tout a key development in the construction of a marine terminal that has been years in the making.

They announced that Holt Logistics Corp. will partner with the South Jersey Port Corporation to run logistical operations at the port — which officials said will create 850 jobs. Holt received the contract in exchange for agreeing to give up 50 acres of port space that Holtec will use in Camden.

"This is an enormous victory for the people of this state," Sweeney said.

The 190-acre facility is being built on a former BP oil tank field, also along the Delaware River. It is expected to open by early 2016.